Sunday, May 26, 2013

Eight-year-old Ty materializes in the desert
outside of Tucson, Arizona, where ten-year-old Tyco lives. Ty's fair
skin instantly begins to glisten with sweat as if he is a wax figure
about to melt. He looks around with squinting eyes as his British,
cool-weather body is accosted by the desert heat. Where is Tyco? Ty
could sense that Tyco was here and until Ty materialized, he thought he
knew where Tyco was. Ty feels a breath of wind behind him, barely
affecting the burning heat. He senses a presence. He begins to feel dizzy as his pulse shoots up, increasing the effect of the heat stress.

“This was a dreadful idea,” he thinks. “If some desert predator has
found me, I should jaunt immediately. But what of Tyco? He might require
assistance. I cannot leave him.”

Ty slowly turns and screams at the looming figure.

“Tyco, I am not your prey! Stop sneaking up on me. I feel so sick.”

“Don’t worry, wimp. I would never let anything happen to you, anyway.
Let me get in front of you, man. You almost scared off what I was
chasing.”

“What are you going to do, Tyco?” says Ty in a quivering, fearful voice.

“This,” says Tyco as he raises his hand and shoots a beam at a rabbit.
The belly of the rabbit explodes as its intestines shoot across the
desert and catch on a nearby saguaro arm.

Tears begin to run
down Ty’s face. “You killed it, Tyco. Why? You are not a primitive Mayan
hunter. You don’t need to kill to eat. It might have babies that will
now starve.”

“No man. It’s a male. I made sure. I have already
had breakfast, so I’m not going to eat it. Look what I did to it. Its
heart is still beating. I learned to open it up and seal the blood veins
and get all that other stuff out of the way. I’m getting pretty good
with my beam, aren’t I?”

“Tyco! You hurt it and now it’s going to die. I can’t stand to see animals die. Why did you do it?”

“I wanted to study how it works. It’s cool. Look at it. You can see everything working.”

“But Guardian could have showed you a simulation of this. You didn’t need to kill it.”

“Elof2 hasn’t shown me how to use the Guardian yet. I got tired of waiting for him to show me.”

Ty looks down. “I know how to use it. I could have showed you.”

“How man?”

“Don’t ask. I just do. I’m sorry now I didn’t show you already. It’s my
fault that rabbit is going to die. Another one for my cry list.”

“Don’t start that again. I thought I helped you get rid of your cry list.”

“You did, until today.”

Both Ty and Tyco jump as the rabbit suddenly begins to glow brightly as
if some sort of luminous fog has started to consume it. The fog fades
as a salt-like dust falls to the ground. Both shakily turn to see
nine-year-old Paul7 standing behind them. He lowers his palms and his
arms. His blond hair in the bright desert light combined with the black
eye shadow surrounding his eyes gives him the appearance of a deadly
ghost about to extract vengeance.

“Hey man, why did you disintegrate my rabbit? It took me a long time to learn how to do the beam like that.”

“I destroyed it because you left it in agony,” says Paul7 with an intense stare. “This is not an acceptable use of your beam.”

“But I was just trying to learn how it works. That’s all.”

Paul7 points his finger at Tyco and hits him with a lightning bolt. Tyco moans loudly and falls to the ground.

“Why did you shoot me, man?” exclaims Tyco.

“I just wanted to ‘learn’ how you would react to my lightning bolt.”

Paul7 shoots another lightning bolt. This time, it hits Ty and he emits
a high pitched scream. He collapses to the ground and curls into a
fetal position, quivering. Tyco immediately rolls over and hugs him like
a protecting tent.

“Why did you do that?” screams Tyco. “You know he is sensitive to pain.”

Paul7 lowers his arm. “I suppose I just wanted to ‘learn’ whether or
not there is any empathy left inside of you. You seem to have no problem
killing an animal in front of him even though he can’t stand to eat
living creatures. I just wanted to learn if the desert has changed your
brain.”

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About Me

Everyone has hidden talents. At some point in your childhood, you selected a fork in the road and decided which of your good talents you would pursue. My first fork led me through government funded school research, corporate funded research, finally to various bleeding edge projects in Silicon Valley. Now, I am looping backwards in time so that I can try the other fork. I am on a campaign to help kids keep those brain cells us adults no longer have. Use them or lose them.